The Bell Between Worlds

by Ian Johnstone

  As they shook hands, the old man straightened and looked at him expectantly.

  “And how should I address my very first customer?”

  “Oh... Sylas. Sylas Tate, sir – Mr Zhi, I mean.”

  He felt flustered, but almost at once he felt Mr Zhi’s eyes soothing and reassuring him, as though telling him in some silent language that all was as it should be.

  “You are very welcome, Sylas Tate,” he said, pronouncing the name with care. He raised himself up. “Now, where shall we start?” He looked into the darkness and seemed to ponder for a moment, then he tapped the side of his nose and his eyes twinkled. “Follow me,” he said.

  He grabbed a candle from the counter and set off with surprising speed between some of the stacks. Sylas had to run to catch up. They turned left, then right, then left again, passing opened parcels of what looked like peculiar musical instruments.

  “What are all these things?” asked Sylas.

  “Ah well, that is a very good question to which there can be no good answer,” said the old man, without turning. “But you have found the right word. I collect and sell Things. Things , by definition, are objects we find hard to explain. Were I to explain them, I think I might have to close up shop!”

  At that moment they arrived at a wall of crates. Some had been taken down and opened and the floor was strewn with straw and shredded paper. Mr Zhi turned to Sylas and smiled.

  “As you can see, I have many thousands of Things in my shop,” he said, his eyes now peering into one of the crates, “but I consider it my particular talent to know which Things will interest which people. That is why I have never taken to having my wonderful Things displayed on shelves and in cabinets. That would take away all of the mystery, which is the greater part of any good Thing, and a good deal of the discovery, which is much of what is left!”

  The shopkeeper bent low over the crate and very gently lowered his gloved hand into the straw.

  “This you will like,” he said.

  He rummaged for a moment and then, with great care, he raised his hand. He was holding a fragile wheel, made of some kind of metal, from which hung a number of silvery strings. Sylas half expected to see a puppet dangling below but, as Mr Zhi lifted the wheel still further, he saw that each string was tied to a tiny silvery bar, from which were suspended three more strings: one at the centre and one at each end. Each of these additional strings was connected to a further bar and thereby to three more strings, and so on, and so on, until Sylas could see a vast and wonderful structure of silvery twine emerging from the crate. Just as he began to wonder how such a complicated thing could have remained untangled in the straw, Mr Zhi drew himself to his full height and raised the wheel above his head.

  Sylas gasped in amazement.

  There, on the end of each of the hundreds of strings, were tiny, delicate, beautiful birds, each with its wings outstretched in some attitude of flight. Their feathers shimmered like rainbows in the candlelight and, as each bird turned on its string, they seemed to throw out more light than they received, so that the surrounding walls of crates moved with colour.

  “It’s wonderful, just wonderful,” said Sylas, letting his rucksack fall to the floor.

  “It is, is it not?” said Mr Zhi, with evident pleasure. “Of course, such wonders are created in part by your very own imagination,” he said, moving the great flock of birds slightly closer to Sylas. “To some, this is a beautiful object that must have taken several years for many careful hands to create. To others, to those with true imagination, it is a marvellous flock of magical birds carried by a wind we cannot feel, calling a cry we cannot hear, united by a purpose we cannot know. To them, each bird is as alive as you or I, because in their imagination they see them soaring, climbing, swooping, turning…”

  Sylas found himself staring ever more intently at the delicately balanced parts of the mobile, watching closely as they moved around each other on the gentle currents of air in the room. He saw how each bird was finished with astonishing detail, showing the individual feathers, the tail fan, the precise angle of the wing as it manoeuvred in flight. He marvelled as they glided past each other without ever colliding, as if aware of one other.

  And then, perhaps in a trick of light, he thought he saw one of them twitch.

  A wing lifted slightly and a long neck turned. Then a crooked wing seemed to straighten as one of the birds turned in a wide arc around another. He blinked in disbelief as he saw another bird beat its wings, change its path in the air and then resume its endless circling. He let his eyes drift from place to place within the multitude, watching as every one of them seemed to take on a life of its own.

  At first they beat their wings at random, but soon every bird was flapping in time with the others. And then, without warning, they broke from the circle below Mr Zhi’s hand and moved in one great flock, banking left then right, their wings catching the light in unison, forming a breathtaking display of colour. The gossamer strings seemed to have disappeared altogether. Moments later the birds turned their heads upwards and rose as if carried by an updraught of air. Sylas gazed in astonishment as he watched them soar over the top of Mr Zhi’s hand in a beautiful arc of light and colour, before swooping downwards to the floor. At the very last moment they turned upwards and sped through the air towards him, their wings beating rapidly now, their feathers ruffling and shimmering. As they circled round his head, Sylas laughed out loud, wanting to reach out and touch them. His heart thumped – not from fear, but from a wild, intoxicating excitement.

  “So now you see it!” came Mr Zhi’s voice from the dark.

  Sylas caught his breath. “I see it!”

  Then, abruptly, the flock of birds wheeled sharply above his head and streamed towards Mr Zhi’s gloved hand. As they reached the glove, they turned again, so tightly this time that the leading birds met those at the rear of the flock, forming a circle. As the last joined formation, Sylas could again see the occasional glint of the silvery strings in the darkness, and then he saw that the tiny bars were supporting their weight once more, as though they had never been gone. The birds circled more and more slowly until they were drifting gently on the air currents. Their wings moved no more.

  Mr Zhi began lowering them back down into the straw. Sylas wanted to ask him to let them fly some more, but had the feeling that they had done all that was intended.

  He cleared his dry throat. “What was that?” he asked.

  Mr Zhi simply patted Sylas cheerfully on the shoulder, picked up the candle and started back along the passageway of parcels. Sylas paused for a moment, glancing down at the pile of straw, but then picked up his rucksack and scrambled after him.

  “There’s much to see!” he heard Mr Zhi say up ahead. “Please keep up!”

  He moved so swiftly that, as Sylas turned one corner, the shopkeeper had already turned the next and the only way to keep pace was by following the dying traces of candlelight that flickered against the walls of parcels ahead.

  “But what was it?” asked Sylas breathlessly.

  “Ah well, the most wondrous Things show themselves only to those who are supposed to see!” shouted Mr Zhi ahead of him, without turning. “So it was with you and the mobile. When you saw it, at first you saw just a beautiful object, a thing of gossamer strings and silver bars and bright-painted feathers. But then you brought it to life. It stirred without any draught to carry it, the wings moved without any plan or design. You made the birds fly,” said Mr Zhi, turning to Sylas excitedly, “fly like I’ve never seen before!”

  Sylas looked puzzled. “But wasn’t that just in my imagination?” he asked. “You told me to use my imagination.”

  “No, I saw everything you saw, but that is not to say that your imagination didn’t bring it to life. You made the birds fly as you dreamed they might, and in doing that – in putting your imagination to work – you showed that you are able to use it like few others. You are able to see the world as it is promised to us.”

  Sylas l
aughed. “I’m pretty sure I see the world like everyone else.”

  “Certainly you do, but the mobile is a sensitive Thing. It shows what you are capable of seeing, not what you already see.” The shopkeeper cocked his head on one side. “A little confusing, isn’t it? But don’t worry, I have more to show you!”

  With that, he turned and set off into the gloom of the shop. Sylas screwed up his face. “The world as it is promised to us?” What could that mean? He knew he had a good imagination – his uncle was for ever telling him that he lived too much in his head – but there was nothing unusual about that. He jogged after the strange shopkeeper, wondering what he was getting himself into.

  As he went, he saw that the giant stacks of parcels were packed so tightly that the shop had become a maze of little corridors, which gave the impression of a room much larger than it actually was. Sylas was just starting to become a little worried that he might not be able to find his way out again when he sped round a corner and almost charged headlong into Mr Zhi.

  The proprietor caught him by the shoulders. “I think this shall be our next stop, young man,” he said, with a wide smile.

  He turned about and stepped on to a small upturned box. He reached up to the topmost shelf and took down a large flat parcel from the top of one of the piles.

  “This Thing is at once very different from the mobile, and very similar,” he said, grunting as he lowered himself back down. “Like the mobile, it uses your imagination to show what is possible, not what you already know to be true.”

  Sylas watched with excitement as Mr Zhi carefully tore open one end of the parcel, then pulled out a large flat object, and cast the wrapping on the floor.

  “The mobile told us that you can see what the world may become,” said the old shopkeeper. “With this Thing – this set of mirrors – we will show something else: that you can see all that you are able to be.”

  At first the object looked like a leather-bound book, but as Mr Zhi laid it carefully on the box, Sylas saw that it was not made of leather but of two pieces of wood, joined along one edge by tarnished but ornate brass hinges. The top piece was black and the piece beneath white. As he leaned forward to look more closely, Mr Zhi took gentle hold of the black panel and lifted. The hinges creaked slightly and the black panel swung open.

  What was revealed seemed unremarkable. Both panels comprised a simple mirror framed by an ornately carved border. The old man lifted them up and adjusted them carefully in front of Sylas until he was looking at himself in both mirrors, each showing his reflection from a slightly different angle, the white one from the left and the black one from the right. The effect was interesting at first, but no more so than looking at a reflection in a bedroom dresser.

  As he glanced between the mirrors, Mr Zhi peered at him, taking in Sylas’s wide brow and small stubby nose; his high arching eyebrows and dark brown eyes that seemed a little sad and old for his age; his thick, dark, wavy hair, cut crudely so that it fell in a tousled mass about his face. The proprietor smiled quietly to himself and shook his head, as if finding something difficult to believe.

  “I just see myself,” said Sylas with a shrug.

  Mr Zhi chuckled. “I’m afraid this will not be easy. You would not need money in my shop, but my Things still come at a price: the struggle to understand.” He moved the mirrors a little closer to Sylas. “The trick with these mirrors is not to look—”

  Suddenly there was a noise at the back of the shop: the clunk of a door closing, the snap of a latch. Mr Zhi frowned and quickly closed the mirrors, pushing them into the nearest pile of Things.

  “Please wait here,” he said, then set out quickly towards the back of the shop.

  There was something about the way he had hidden the mirrors that alarmed Sylas. It was clear at once that whoever had entered by the back door was not expected. Instinctively he took a few paces after Mr Zhi, but when he saw a large shadow move across the candlelight on the ceiling, he stopped.

  Mr Zhi turned. “Stand very still,” he said. “I’ll be straight back.”

  A shiver went through Sylas. All of a sudden, Mr Zhi sounded worried. Very worried.

  3

  The Third Thing

  “Here miracles rise from the earth and awe is in the air; here

  wonder flows over and, like a mountain spring, never runs dry…”

  SYLAS STOOD STILL, AS he had been told, and listened.

  At first he heard nothing but Mr Zhi’s footsteps, but then came the sound of voices. Low voices, speaking quickly in urgent tones. He could not hear what was being said, but one of the speakers was Mr Zhi. The other voice was deep and masculine, speaking in murmurings that resonated through the shop but were impossible to make out. There was a quick exchange between the two men, and then suddenly the strange voice boomed loud and clear.

  “No! It must be now! Today!”

  Then, for a long time, the voices were a mumble.

  Finally, after Sylas felt like he had been standing there for hours, Mr Zhi came back into the room.

  “My apologies!” he said as he strode back towards Sylas. His face bore the same calm, amiable expression as before, but Sylas noticed that he was walking even more quickly. “That was my new assistant – I had quite forgotten that we had arranged to meet, so much was I enjoying your visit!”

  “That’s fine,” said Sylas. “Is everything... all right?”

  “Oh, quite all right, though I am sorry to say that we will not have as much time as I had hoped.” The shopkeeper blew out his cheeks and fingered his little beard, eyeing the pile of Things where he had deposited the mirrors. “In fact... yes... yes, sadly I think we must leave the mirrors for another time...”

  He turned on his heel and marched back towards the rear of the shop. “Come on, young man! The second Thing must wait, but the third Thing is by far the most exciting of all!” Sylas shook his head in bewilderment and set out after him – this shop was getting stranger and stranger.

  When they reached the back of the shop, there was no sign of the assistant, though Sylas noticed that the back door was slightly ajar. Meanwhile the shopkeeper had dropped to his knees behind the counter. All that could be seen of him was the very top of his odd little hat, which bobbed and danced as he scrabbled around on the low shelves.

  “This third Thing is marvellous in its own right,” mumbled Mr Zhi as he threw unwanted Things over his shoulder, “but it will also help you to understand...” He grunted as he paused to look at something. “...To understand the others. This is it!” He murmured with satisfaction and stood up, dusting the creased lapels of his jacket. He gave Sylas an excited wink and then lifted something above the broken surface of the counter. It was another parcel, but different from all the others. It was an oblong about the size of a novel, covered with some kind of leather, which was folded over neatly on all sides and fastened with twine, tied in a bow at the top. The old man had placed his gloved hand on top of it, as though part of him didn’t want his most special of Things to be seen. He turned it over and ran a finger over the wrinkled leather.

  The candles crackled and spat, the dancing flames making the shadows shift. Mr Zhi held the parcel for another moment with both hands, running his thumbs over the leather wrapping. Then he squeezed it fondly as if bidding it farewell and pushed it across the counter.

  “Take a look at this.”

  Sylas’s eyes ran over the neat folds of worn leather and the carefully tied twine that bound it. As he took hold of it, he felt the same stirrings of excitement that he had experienced when he had first entered the shop. It was surprisingly warm to the touch, the leather soft and yielding against his skin.

  With a glance at Mr Zhi, he took hold of one end of the twine and pulled. The knot untied itself instantly and both the twine and the soft leather wrapping fell away as though they were made of silk.

  Sylas’s eyes widened. “Wow...” he whispered.

  Between his palms lay the most exquisite book he had ever seen.
The cover was made of mottled brown leather that had seen better days, its once smooth finish now dented and grazed by its many years of use. But into this drab leather had been laid the most beautiful decorations of gold, silver and dark red stones.

  Sylas turned it so that it caught the candlelight and saw that they formed a pattern: a row of gems, seven on each edge, placed on the outside of a stitched, golden zigzag that ran along the four sides, the thread sewn so tightly that the stitches could hardly be seen. Within this border a superbly adorned symbol had been laid into the leather: a large snaking S made of gold at the top and silver at the bottom. The back cover was beautiful too, with the same zigzagging border around its four edges, this time in silver. He looked back at Mr Zhi and saw that the old man was also transfixed by the book. It took a moment for their eyes to meet. “It’s beautiful,” said Sylas in a whisper. “Is it old?”

  “Very old.”

  “And what does the S mean?”

  “Most people who know about this book call it the Samarok, and it is thought that the S comes from that name. Aren’t you going to open it?”

  “Yes – yes, of course.”

  Sylas allowed the book to fall open. The pages turned in a flurry of paper until they settled on what must have been the weakest part of the binding, towards the end of the book. The first thing to strike him was the wonderful woody, rich aroma of old books – much more intense than he had smelt before – like dry oak leaves on a forest floor. Then he saw the words, written in black lettering that marched a little irregularly across the page, the lines undulating slightly as they went. It was not a printed book, but one written by hand.

  He looked up at Mr Zhi, who was placing some spectacles on his nose.

  “Someone wrote this by hand?”

  “Not one person, Sylas, many,” replied the shopkeeper, clearly enjoying Sylas’s amazement. He leaned over and peered through his spectacles at the open book. “Have a look.”

  Sylas turned the page with great care and saw that the next was written in strange looping tails and graceful lines. The page opposite was written in another crowded, huddling scrawl. He flicked through towards the front of the book and, sure enough, almost every page was written in a new hand, with smudges here and crossings-out there, giving the appearance of some sort of collected journal. But when he reached a point around halfway through, the style changed and it was written in one measured, unremarkable hand in almost perfectly straight lines. There were still errors, and parts of pages were faded and illegible, but it looked far more like a normal book.